California’s Supreme Court upheld the state’s gay-marriage ban Tuesday but said the estimated 18,000 same-sex weddings that took place before the prohibition passed are still valid _ a ruling decried by gay-rights activists as a hollow victory

In a 6-1 decision written by Chief Justice Ron George, the court rejected arguments that the ban approved by the voters last fall was such a fundamental change in the California Constitution that it first needed the Legislature’s approval.

While gay rights advocates accused the court of failing to protect a minority group from the will of the majority, the justices said that the state’s governing framework gives voters almost unfettered ability to change the California Constitution.

The state Supreme Court ruled 4-3 last May that it was unconstitutional to deny gay couples the right to wed. For a while, that put California _ the nation’s most populous state _ back in its familiar position in the vanguard of social change; at the time, Massachusetts was the only other state to allow gay marriage.

In California, gay rights activists argued that the ban was improperly put to the voters and amounted to a revision _ which required legislative approval _ not an amendment. But the justices disagreed.

The court said that while the ban denies gay couples use of the term “marriage,” it does not fundamentally disturb their basic right to “establish an officially recognized and protected family relationship with the person of one’s choice and to raise children within the family.” California still allows gay couples to form domestic partnerships.

Prominent lawyers Theodore B. Olson and David Boies filed a lawsuit Friday in U.S. District Court on behalf of two gay men and two gay women, arguing that Proposition 8 violates the U.S. constitutional guarantee of equal protection and due process.

Olson said he hopes the case, which seeks a preliminary injunction against the measure until the case is resolved, will wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court. He is a former U.S. solicitor general who served in high-level Justice Department jobs in the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations.

I didn’t want to give these idiots any relevancy, but since the nutjobs are sprouting up all over the place, I guess I’ll take some time to respond, however inane their arguments are.

Ok so I think the best way to do this is to just rattle off some facts (and some opinions) in list format for ease of reading:

Here’s are 10 questions for all you people at these so-called T.E.A. (Taxed Enough Already…cute isn’t it?) Parties ranting and raving about wasteful spending and deficits–

Why all of a sudden are you upset about paying taxes?

Why all of a sudden are you upset about government spending?

Why all of a sudden are you upset about the bailout and the stimulus package?

Where have you been over the past eight years?

Where have you been while GWB and his Republican administration racked up the largest deficit in our country’s history?

Where were you when GWB and his administration would not include Iraq in the normal budget and would only pay for it with “emergency spending money” so he could hide the billions that were being funneled to private contractors (aka his friends) over in the Gulf to rebuild and secure a nation that we had just irresponsibly attacked for no good reason?

Where were you when GWB passed the first stimulus package?

Where were you when Ronald Reagan tripled the national debt (i.e. more than equaled the entire debt burden produced by the previous 200 years of American history?

Where were you when GWB doubled it after Clinton eliminated it?

Where were you when Reagan (because of his insane cut taxes/raise spending economics) was forced to raise taxes TWICE to avert a fiscal catastrophe?!

I don’t mind if you are worried about government spending. I will respect your views as much as their are LOGICAL and VIABLE with facts, history, and reality. But you Republicans and Libertarians and Fox News nuts at these tea parties don’t have facts, history, or reality on your side.

You protest when there is a Democrat in the Oval Office and a Democratic Congress. But you’re silent when there is a Republican President and/or Congress. You are currently a party that is living in a heaping pile of lies, revisionist history, and alternate reality.

You’re not protesting spending. You have rallied behind deficit spending for the past 30 years. You are protesting the fact that you lost the election in embarassing form. You are protesting because you are sore losers and you’re not willing to allow the “other side” even 100 days to try to right this enormous ship that has been diverted off track by your leaders.

Rather than taking to the streets to allegedly protest wasteful spending (by, ironically, wastefully spending on millions of tea bags), why don’t you all take some time to READ FACTS and LEARN HISTORY and deal with REALITY. Just for a change. Just to see where it leads you. You might upset your other ignorant, fire-breathing friends and family members, but you might just feel a little better inside yourselves.